


Friday Afternoons

by allimarie_xf



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 01:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12002385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allimarie_xf/pseuds/allimarie_xf
Summary: Tea and conversations about love.





	Friday Afternoons

**I. In April I open my bill**

_When Jack Robinson was a child, his father called him “Little Bird,” because he was always trying to fly off somewhere. The story went that the day he started to crawl was also the day he slipped his mother’s watchful eye, made it to the front porch, and would have tumbled to the street below if a neighbor hadn’t turned him back at just the right moment. When he was 12 and got his first bicycle, not even the threat of missing supper could keep him from wandering past curfew._

April 26, 1929 

“Good afternoon, Inspector.” Mr. Butler took Jack’s coat and hat and escorted him into the parlor. “I’ll let Miss Fisher know you’re here.”

Jack nodded at the older man with a small smile of appreciation and wandered aimlessly toward the bay window. He was growing accustomed to many things that came along with friendship with Miss Fisher, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever be entirely comfortable being waited on, even by a butler who was treated more like family than servant. Then again, he’d somehow slipped into the semi-regular habit of Friday afternoon tea, complete with finger sandwiches and scones, so perhaps anything was possible. 

“Good afternoon, Jack!” Phryne strode into the room with her usual vivacious air, and Jack seated himself as Mr. Butler followed immediately with a loaded tea cart.

A comfortable silence reigned as Jack and Phryne chose their favorites among the sandwiches and sipped at their tea. Jack found his thoughts returning to their most recent case. “I can’t help but feel sad for Valma Brightwell.”

“The air of tragedy in Maiden Creek was practically tangible.” Phryne picked up the thread of Jack’s thoughts with a deftness that suggested she also had been lingering on the affair. “Not just Valma, but everyone seemed caught in the shadow of the war. The sins of the older generation seemed to leave a stain that even the younger generation couldn’t escape.”

Jack considered Flora, Frank, Oskar, and Erik. Each bound by webs of loyalty that they did not completely comprehend, enacting and reinforcing inherited hatred and suspicion. “But would they have, even if they had known the whole story? Familial loyalty is a potent force.”

“I keep thinking of how Valma must have felt, learning that Mikael refused to cancel the festival when it was learned her son had died.”

“He should have canceled. It would have been the decent thing to do.” Jack stared into his cup absently.

“An opinion shared by most of the town, it would seem. But failing to do the decent thing doesn’t warrant death.”

“Most would agree with that. But maybe not if it were seen as the last straw. Piled on top of the injustice that Erik and Oskar alone had returned from the war.” 

“Yes, and on top of an underlying dose of hatred and fear of immigrants.” She paused. “Never mind the fact that the town’s prosperity was owed to the Voigt’s vineyard. Do you think it was Valma who painted the message on the community hall?”

Instead of answering, Jack took a long sip of tea and looked toward the window. “When I was seven, an Aboriginal family moved into our neighborhood, just down the street. They had a son, my age, maybe a little older. His English was as good as mine, but he didn’t own any Robert Louis Stevenson. I, on the other hand, was fascinated with his Woiwurrung language, so we worked out a trade: I leant him my _Treasure Island_ and he gave me lessons.”

Phryne, arrested by this image of young Jack Robinson and certain that there was more to the story, watched him sift through the tower of crustless sandwiches in search of any remaining ham, cheese, and mustard-pickle. When he located one, he raised it to his lips, but paused before taking a bite. After a long moment during which he neither continued his story nor ate his sandwich, she lifted her eyes to find him watching her with the slightest hint of a smile. Phryne realized she had been staring at his lips, but rather than show any embarrassment, she met his eyes squarely, silently challenging him to call her out.

He gazed back at her levelly. 

“And so now you are fluent, I suppose?”

Jack popped the entire sandwich into his mouth and shook his head while chewing. Phryne watched as his tongue darted out to wet his lips and he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “After it had been going on for about two weeks, I said something in Woiwurrung at the supper table. My family were not pleased, and while my mother cried, my father pressed the argument with a belt. I never saw that little boy again, and I believe the family left the area soon after. It seems they hadn’t been made to feel welcome by any of the neighbors.”

Phryne held her teacup with both hands and let the warmth seep into her body through her palms. “What did you do?”

Jack shrugged. “I lamented the loss of my book. Did I mention I was seven?”

His levity wasn’t intended to deter Phryne, and it didn’t. “Where does it come from, this fear of outsiders? Common sense suggests it comes from a lack of exposure to other cultures, and Maiden Creek’s remoteness seems to confirm that, but even in this city of thousands, we seek ways to exclude, building boundaries where none ever existed before.”

Jack shrugged again, his thoughts fixed inward. “I think it’s like being in the trenches. You’re sitting there, a few score feet away from the enemy, both sides miserable, sick, dirty, likely to die. For some the realization that you have more in common with the enemy than your family back home is inescapable. But it’s a dangerous realization, one that forces you to question the war and your role in it, likely drive you mad, and plenty of brave, good men chose not to face that realization. Instead, they piled their misery and fear onto the young men facing us, young men we’d never met, young men with dreams and families, turning them into an enemy worthy of hate.”

Phryne nodded slowly. Jack’s assessment of war wasn’t new to her; she had witnessed it first-hand, and was also a competent study of human nature in general. But she, like Jack, also knew that awareness of the situation was not enough. They had both read enough to know that, despite the attempts of many great authors throughout history to articulate the futility of war, arguments, whether logical or impassioned, were never enough. “Anger is more comfortable than despair. It is easier to manufacture a target for blame than it is to face the capricious nature of fate, or worse, to examine how one’s own actions have contributed to one’s own sorrow and destruction.” 

“Some would say ‘love is the answer.’” His words were offered lightly.

“Doctor Ryan’s actions suggest that love can sometimes be part of the problem.”

Jack huffed in indulgent exasperation. “Unselfish love, then.”

Phryne tilted her chin at him and waited until he met her eyes. “And how, exactly, does one achieve that?”

**II. In May I sing night and day**

_Fresh-faced Jack Robinson, 17 years old, was willing to try anything. While he was thoughtful and considerate to the core, his enthusiasm for life paired with his unfamiliarity with strife made him brave, generous, and irresistible to most of the young women in his circle._

_It was the force of this self-confidence that swept Rosie up; and while he had never calculated success in worldly terms, he also had no reason to contradict any of the specific wishes she sometimes slipped into their wooing. He had no reason to believe he couldn’t bring about any end he worked toward, and he hadn’t yet learned that worldly success and happiness do not always go hand in hand._

_Her belief in him seemed to give him wings. Long since, he had given up flying for the sake of it, and likewise he had abandoned his dreams of cycling professionally. Yet life with Rosie seemed to promise a better, more achievable kind of summit. In the evenings as they would stroll along the river, she sketched plans for a life that would make his father proud._

May 17, 1929 

Jack walked through the double doors to discover Phryne leaning on the mantelpiece, the tea service already laid out between two stuffed armchairs. 

“Hazel Creswick telephoned to say the National Broadcasting Service has agreed to hold the presenter position for her until she’s recovered enough to establish herself in Sydney. She’s lucky, in more ways than one.”

Jack nodded with raised eyebrows. “If you discount her initial misfortune of falling in with Harry Redpath, of course.” 

Phryne conceded the point with exaggeratedly widened eyes. “Jimmy - Harry - whatever his name is, he certainly had a strange concept of love.” 

Jack watched her apply clotted cream to a scone, the tip of her tongue protruding unselfconsciously at the corner of her mouth. She seemed to notice him watching her, because all at once she laid down her knife and looked at him. Her pointed stare compelled him to affirm her statement. “Poisoning her? Yes, I’d say so.”

“But not only that, Jack. Controlling her. Making her feel as though she had no choice but to hide her success from him! Dot told me she asked her if she’d ever ‘loved a man so much she’d sacrifice her freedom.’ Sacrifice her _freedom_ , Jack. That’s almost worse than death, if you ask me.”

“Is that really so strange, though? Not every woman has your...compulsion...for freedom, Miss Fisher.”

She met his eyes squarely. “Not every woman has my means. But I can assure you every woman would prefer to be master of her own destiny.”

Jack did not look convinced. “I expect some women are more than happy with the way things are.” His tone was subdued.

“With ‘the way things are’?! Jack, do you even hear yourself? ‘The way things are’ has women staying at home, darning socks, incubating babies, knitting scarves, and generally subjugating their own wishes while the men go out and have all the fun! Driving racecars, having adventures, and even...even working as police constables.”

Jack acknowledged her coquettish remark with an appreciative smile. “I can think of more than one man who might like to have it the other way ‘round.”

“But Jack, that’s the point.” She widened her eyes in exasperation. “Men have that choice; women generally do not.” After a steadying breath, she continued more quietly, “I know how quickly a woman’s inherent sense of self-worth can evaporate once she has consented to rely upon a man.”

Jack set his teacup down and focused all his attention on her. “Rene.” 

“Actually, I was thinking about my mother. When I was a child, my Aunt Prudence used to come visiting (an occasion Janey and I _dreaded_ , I can assure you), but every so often, if my father was away, she and my mother would shed their differences and truly _talk_ to one another. Usually about their childhood. And it was only then that I caught glimpses of the person my mother _used_ to be: brave, inquisitive, carefree. Instead of the person I knew her as: nervous, irritable, and submissive. I swore to myself then that I would never let a man change me. But as you know, I let myself down.”

Jack tilted his head in unconscious encouragement.

“I grew up guarding against love, because my mother’s example had taught me that to love was to lose oneself. But it turns out that losing yourself to love sometimes feels like finding yourself, until suddenly you wake up and you’re almost all gone. Rene didn’t just want to own me; he wanted to erase me. And it happens everywhere, Jack, all the time, not just in the extreme cases of murder.”

Jack acknowledged her words with a slow nod, then took a long moment to stir more milk into his tea before replying. “When I came back from the war, I had lost my desire to rise in the ranks of the force. Advancement came, but slowly. I didn’t put in the extra hours, the extra social commitments, and I couldn’t be interested in the politics. I couldn’t even remember how I used to care. Rosie was...not understanding. I tried to give her the life she wanted, the life she expected, but in the end I wasn’t enough.”

“So even you were not immune to the imprisoning forces of love.”

Jack shook his head. “It wasn’t love, and that’s my point. Perhaps true love _is_ possible within the confines of traditional institutions, but it certainly makes things harder. I think love is a living force that is always developing, and unless we are careful managers of the direction it grows, it will diminish. I think too often the traditional institutions of love take the place of active management. And I think in many cases, it’s that cage, and not love itself, that was wanted in the first place.”

Phryne was staring at Jack in something like awe. “This is surprising, coming from you.”

Jack met her eyes and flushed abruptly. He had been speaking mainly of marriage, and failed to notice the many other possible applications of his sentiments. Unwilling to backtrack from what he felt was a solid theory, however, Jack merely shrugged. “Love cannot flourish if one person is imprisoned, and the other imprisoner, regardless of which is the keeper of the keys. We spoke last month of the meaning of unselfish love, and I think it is this: that each person must choose their own path, and if they should choose paths in parallel, then it is truly love.”

Phryne sat back and regarded him with crossed arms and a small smirk, letting the silence speak for her.

**III. In June I change my tune**

_For Jack, as it was for almost everyone of his generation, the war was a great eye-opener. In the usual course of things, the realization that the world is not the pleasant place promised by the songs and stories of youth comes gradually, suggested here and there by the actions and attitudes one encounters in adolescence but dismissed over and over again as mere aberrations, until unrelenting disappointment ultimately sheds light on the dismal reality that people are selfish, small-minded, intellectually lazy, and tribalist. But for those fresh faced youth who marched off to war believing that justice and goodness marched with them, assuming that benevolence and good intentions were simple and effective weapons that none but they knew how to wield, the lesson was swift and decisive, and all the more bitter for it._

June 14, 1929

Phryne closed the double doors and turned to regard Jack sitting in her parlor, partially obscured by an overflowing tea-tray. Mr. Butler had outdone himself, it seemed.

Jack returned her level gaze. It had been over a week since they’d seen each other, but in many ways it seemed like years. After a long moment, he broke the silence. “They’re putting together a corruption case, and thankfully I’ve been judged as unfit to oversee it. But it’s been a trying week, even so.”

Phryne didn’t need to ask whose corruption he was referring to. She hadn’t seen him since the night Sanderson was arrested, but she knew little else could have been occupying his thoughts. She opened her mouth to reply, but found no words were forthcoming. Instead, she sat down next to him on the sofa and poured them each some tea.

“I thought he was a good man.”

Phryne handed him a brimming teacup and waited.

“He was a good man.” He lifted the cup to his lips and breathed in the steam before taking a small sip. Phryne watched the bob of his Adam’s apple. “There were times when I was a younger man...times when I would have been lost, if not for him. Working cases, but also in my personal dealings.” Jack paused, obviously reliving a vivid memory. 

Phryne encouraged his confidence with patient silence. 

“Times when the correct path was unclear to me, and I didn’t know how to proceed. George always seemed above it all, able to guide me in the right direction. I don’t know how he could have lost his way so completely.”

Phryne huffed a sigh, thinking of her own father. “I don’t think it works like that, Jack. Perhaps in his own mind, he really was pursuing the right course. According to her own moral compass, even Perpetua thought she was doing good by selling those girls.” 

Jack gave a short, humorless laugh. “I should think there’d be absolutely no ambiguity about that.” 

“Yes, well, it was an extreme example,” she answered dryly. “But suppose George Sanderson really _didn’t_ know what Fletcher was up to? Suppose he chose not to ask because he was pursuing his case against Commissioner Hall, and he felt that a bit of illegal smuggling was a fair price to pay for Fletcher’s evidence? If so, did he actually lose his way, or was he merely acting according to the same sense of righteousness that has guided you so many times in the past?” 

Jack looked a little green at the idea. “If that’s true, it’s entirely possible that I’ve contributed to a worsening of things, regardless of my intentions. And if _that’s_ true, then what’s the point of even _attempting_ to be moral?” Jack looked at Phryne, knowing the answer was latent within him, but wanting to hear her work it out.

“I don’t think it’s the achieving that matters so much as the attempting,” she essayed.

Jack was not satisfied, and probed further. “But if that’s the case, what’s the difference between my attempts and...and Perpetua’s?” 

“I think it comes down to motive. To an honest attempt to be better. To not see goodness as a trait that can be achieved, but as a behavior that must be continually enacted.”

Jack drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the teacup in his hand, but continued staring straight ahead.

“When I came back to Australia, I only had one goal, you know. Find Janey. True, in theory I came to make sure Murdoch Foyle wasn’t released, and true, I wanted to find a way to make him pay further for her death. But what I wanted, really wanted, was to learn what happened to her. I realize now I wanted to be sure it wasn’t my fault. But what I found, instead, was the inescapable fact that it _was_ my fault.”

Jack, who had unconsciously leaned toward Phryne when she began to speak, opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off.

“I spent years parceling out blame, being angry with Foyle, but also being angry with my father, for making our home so miserable that Janey and I couldn’t bear to be there. Angry with my mother, for accepting Janey’s loss so quickly. Angry with the police, for failing to bring her home. For years my righteous anger fueled my capacity to seek justice, and part of me congratulated myself for being Janey’s sole avenger. So when I learned...when I realized the role I played in enabling her murder, I should have been lost in self-recrimination.”

Jack rotated so that he could look directly into Phryne’s face. “But that was different. You were a child, Phryne. You were innocent, and unsuspecting of the world. You couldn’t have known what... _monsters_ were out there.”

“And that is what you taught me, Jack. That we cannot be held responsible for what we cannot have known. But most of all, you have taught me the importance of forgiveness: because forgiveness reminds us that we all have far to go. Forgiveness tempers the flame of self-righteousness, and it is that flame that blinded George Sanderson, blinded Perpetua, and almost blinded me in my single-minded pursuit of justice.”

“And am I to forgive George Sanderson so easily, then?” His eyes drew her in, asking her to be his moral guide, and seeking absolution.

“You know very well that the type of forgiveness I’m speaking of is not easy. It is a type of forgiveness that begins, first and foremost, in a willingness to acknowledge our own fallibility, to never assume one’s own goodness as a given.” 

He waited, and their breaths mingled for a moment. 

She cocked her head and granted him a critical look. “No, I think there’s no chance that you’ve accepted George Sanderson’s advice blindly in the past; that’s not like the careful man I know you to be. You have an almost super-human aptitude for humility and grace. It is one of the reasons I decided to keep you around in the first place.”

After a beat, Phryne cracked a slow, small smile that Jack could not help but return.

**IV. In July far far I fly**

_When he returned from the war, it was not so much that the experience had changed Jack and Rosie from the people they had been, but that it had acted as a crucible, strengthening their most immutable characteristics and burning away the things they had wanted to believe about each other, ultimately exposing how incompatible the two had always been._

_For the first time in his life, Jack learned what it was to run away. Having always been someone who ran, headlong, toward, it was a soul-crushing exercise. And when he achieved enough distance between the life Rosie had imagined for him and the life he had built for himself, he taught himself to believe that he had seen all he had ever wanted to see, achieved his highest heights, and could now be satisfied to be still_. 

July 26, 1929

“Has your father gone, then?”

“I put him on the boat this morning.” Phryne’s tone of mixed relief and regret expressed more than words ever could.

“Good. Good.” It had only been a few days since Henry Fisher had, for the third time, thwarted their supper plans, and the atmosphere was thick with things unspoken. Jack was considering how he might gracefully ease the discussion toward the topics that needed to be addressed when Phryne saved him the trouble. 

“I don’t know how to feel about him, Jack! I suppose I never have known, which is why I’ve spent so much time as far away from him as I could get. But he’s my father, and I know I should love him...I _do_ love him...but he never quite manages to be the man I think he ought to be. Fathers ought to be responsible, dependable. Fathers are meant to to be faithful to their wives, and protective of their children. And yet with my father it’s always seemed to be the other way around.”

Jack studied Phryne’s anguished face, attempting to fathom the amount of times she had been let down as a child. It was a heartbreaking exercise, coming to terms with the fact that Phryne’s strength had not developed in a supportive environment, but rather had been honed through perpetual disappointment. And yet, rather than coming away from the experience hardened and cynical, she had a capacity for love that regularly astonished him. “I knew a woman once.”

Phryne looked up sharply at his apparent casual change of subject.

“She was, for a long time, an utter mystery to me. Perhaps she still is.”

Phryne glided toward him, evidently intrigued.

“Foremost among this woman’s fascinating qualities was her ability to accept people for who they were, rather than who they ought to have been. She did not rely on other people to make her happy, but took happiness where she found it. In spite of the many ways that people failed to live up to their potential, she continued to welcome them, to love them. And because of that capacity for unconditional love, she inspired everyone she met to become better versions of themselves. Not only because they felt they owed it to her, but because she showed them that they owed it to themselves.”

Phryne fixed him with a penetrating stare. “She sounds wonderful. What happened to this woman?”

Jack looked at her with the ghost of a smile and paused long enough for his words to gain significance. “It seems she has momentarily forgotten the most important thing she taught me: that the truest form of love is that which is given unreservedly, regardless of the possibility of rejection and disappointment.”

Realization that he was speaking of her dawned on Phryne with something like relief, and she placed her hand on his arm.

“I’m not saying she ought to let her father entirely off the hook. I’m simply saying she ought to remember that she cannot change other people at their core; she can only change how they affect her happiness. And she may find that her loving acceptance ultimately inspires him to change for the better, as it has inspired so many others to do.”

Phryne slid her hand up and around to rest on Jack’s shoulder, but he remained still, his arms at his sides.

“And have I inspired you for the better?”

“I should think that would be obvious.”

She squeezed his shoulder impatiently. “Detective Inspector, whatever do you mean?”

He looked down at her, his slight squint complementing his measured words. “I’m learning...to accept...that though I cannot guarantee that I won’t be hurt, it doesn’t mean that I cannot love. I’m learning to accept love where it is, instead of where I thought it ought to be.” He swallowed, quirked his lips, and continued more quickly. “I’m learning that this unplanned love, in addition to being preferable to living loveless, is far more exhilarating and boundless than cautious love could ever be.”

Phryne had never considered herself a coward, but Jack’s bravery left her speechless. She discovered that she had drawn toward him so that her left hand was pressed against his chest, while her right hand anchored him at the base of his neck. Jack, unresisting, nevertheless kept his arms at his sides. His words, and his refusal to bind her with them through touch, were simultaneously arousing and maddening. She found herself unable to craft a careful reply, and just as unable to stay silent. “Jack Robinson, what am I going to do with you?”

“I suggest you have one of these sandwiches, and we’ll take it from there.”

**V. In August away I must**

_When Jack Robinson met Phryne Fisher, it was as if she had brought him a map of all the places he had never been and all the roads he had never traveled, and demanded to know why he refused to leave his perch._

_But unlike Rosie, Phryne had no wish to choose Jack’s destination. She only wanted for him to fly._

August 30, 1929

“The Inspector, Miss Fisher.”

Phryne strode forward to meet him, as if magnetically compelled. “Hello, Insp-”

“Good after-” They spoke simultaneously, then stopped, sharing an unusually awkward chuckle.

They had been working together non-stop all month, meeting at all hours and in all locations, but they had rarely found time to speak without an audience, let alone to discuss private matters. Even so, it seemed that much had happened between them. Phryne felt uncharacteristically shy.

Jack reached out to touch the swallow brooch that was pinned to her scarf, and the gesture conjured the memory of their lemonade toast. Had it only been three weeks? Phryne looked up from his hand to meet his gaze. 

“I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of man I am. I fear I’m not as brave as I should be, but not foolish enough to not know it.” His eyes were serious.

Phryne’s breath caught in her throat. It was true that things between them had progressed to the point of boiling over, that they had teased and prodded and dared each other past the point of safe return. But he couldn’t possibly be proposing, could he? She tried to think of a way to lighten the conversation.

“Concetta Fabrizzi proposed to me.”

Phryne’s jaw dropped, along with her stomach. This was not the proposal she’d anticipated.

Sensing he’d upset her beyond the dramatic effect he’d intended, Jack continued quickly, “A month ago.” He opened his mouth, but found he didn’t quite know how to continue. Instead, he sat and helped himself to a cup of tea, and Phryne followed suit.

“And have you given an answer?” Phryne feared her attempt at nonchalance was weak. 

Jack looked at her sidelong, seemingly aware for the first time that he had truly rattled her. “I have. I did, I mean, a month ago.”

Phryne visibly relaxed. “But you considered it.” The implied question demanded more than a simple yes or no.

“Concetta is...a good woman. A deserving woman.” He held Phryne’s eyes, forcing himself to give her the explanation she deserved, though he hadn’t yet been able to articulate it to himself. “She is the kind of woman I wished Rosie had been.” He looked away, despite his intention.

Phryne laid her hand on his arm, encouraging him, and bracing herself for whatever he might reveal. 

He looked at her again, openly. “A cautious man would have taken her up on her offer. I was tempted, I...I wanted to say yes. She is the type of woman who would always take care of a man’s heart.”

Phryne felt her stomach drop, and attempted to discover if there was a deeper message hidden in his eyes. Was he speaking generally, or directing the comment at her specifically? She would claw the eyes out of any woman who would dare tread on his regard; why couldn’t she bring herself to tell him so? Her voice was slightly thick: “And so why didn’t you?”

“She didn’t give me that chance!” His breath released in a small laugh. “But I couldn’t have gone through with it, regardless.” He reached out and again stroked the swallow pin, seeming to gain strength from it. After a moment, he met her eyes again, and Phryne knew she had never seen him so unguarded. “It seems I am already not the man I was, the cautious man seeking safe love. It seems he’s been replaced entirely by the incautious man, and incautious love has already found him where he is.”

Phryne held his gaze for a long moment, rendered speechless by his near-confession, but moreso by the fact that she did not feel the need to hide from it. Still, she found herself unable to acknowledge his feelings in words.

But Jack, having incautiously committed to love regardless of consequences, was not about to back away. He saw Phryne’s acceptance of his admission, saw how she allowed him to see it, and it was enough for the time being. After a long moment, he decided to build upon progress, so he quirked his eyebrow and smirked slightly: “So what _does_ this all say about the kind of man I am? I believe you haven’t yet fulfilled your promise to psychoanalyze me….”

Phryne widened her eyes incredulously. How had he gotten so good at throwing her off-balance? She attempted to collect herself. “Is that an invitation?”

Gamely, he replied, “I would call this a more intimate setting.”

“And you are already on the couch….”

Jack lifted his teacup in a mock salute and smirked, calling her bluff.

Phryne, never one to back down from a challenge, put her cup down and twisted around to face him directly, tucking her feet underneath her. She studied him for a long moment, attempting to suppress the giddiness she felt. “So. What other things do you remember from the Chinese brothel?”

“Aside from the Electrical Massager?” He was eminently composed.

“Yes.” She finally achieved the archness that normally came easily. “ Did anything make...an impression?”

Jack likewise set his teacup on the tray and placed his palms on his thighs, slowly turning so that his left knee pressed against hers. He leaned into her space and let his gaze drift from her eyes, to her mouth, to her lap, back to her lips, and finally up to her eyes again. “I noted a number of peculiar devices, but as I said, I failed to understand the uses of most of them. The impression that was left was more...general.”

Phryne’s heart seemed to be beating in her throat, but thankfully she was well practiced in the art of seduction. “And how do you characterize that general impression?” 

Jack allowed a small, slow smile. “I would say, I entered a man who had wanted nothing but beans for supper, and left a man with a craving for Cassoulet.”

“And since then, have you satisfied your craving?” She was certain his steady eyes could see straight through her.

“Well, despite my enduring curiosity, you might remember that until I met you, I hadn’t really had the opportunity to sample much French Cuisine.” He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, his focus trained entirely on her. “But now that I have, I find my appetite for it has only grown.”

Phryne swallowed and smiled in a weak attempt to appear casual and in control of their flirting, though it was clear he knew the effect he was having on her, and was comfortable with her discomposure. After a moment she broke their gaze under the guise of pouring more tea. 

Things were progressing farther and faster than she had ever thought they might, and all at once she realized that her feelings toward Jack Robinson were not ambiguous at all. Despite her apparent reluctance, things had been moving in a very definite, and entirely unprecedented direction for a long time. And most surprisingly of all, she realized she could hardly wait to find out what happened next. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack smile.

**Epilogue**

September 6, 1929 

A light breeze tousled the leaves on the Eucalyptus trees lining the road outside the telegraph office, sounding of the ocean. Jack opened the door and stepped into the relatively dark room, the overlapping sounds of purposeful tapping meeting his ears. As he approached the counter, he couldn’t help but lament the difference between this atmosphere and the warm, comfortable parlor that he had learned to look forward to every Friday afternoon. What a difference a week had made! And yet, she had asked him to follow her, and he found he couldn’t bother to entertain regrets and what-ifs. 

Steadily, he spoke his message to the telegraph agent, imagining as he did that each word would float into the sky, be caught by the wind, and fly toward her ears unerringly. “Coming after you. SS Kestrel. Alighting December Southampton.” If Phryne Fisher had taught him anything, it was that life was meant to be an adventure. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Inzannatea (Zanna23) for beta! Also to everyone else who advised and encouraged. I adore you fabulous ladies!
> 
> In case anyone is interested, this work was inspired by the hauntingly nostalgic and spare "Cuckoo!" by Benjamin Britten from his collection _Friday Afternoons_. The chapter names comprise the lyrics to the song. It's only about a two minute-long song, but I had it on repeat a lot while writing this :D 
> 
> I also discovered, through interesting but ultimately unsuccessful literary research, that Shakespeare has a poem entitled "Spring" that struck me as uncannily (albeit only superficially) relevant to this fic:
> 
>  When daisies pied, and violets blue,  
> And lady-smocks all silver-white,  
> And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue  
> Do paint the meadows with delight,  
> The cuckoo then, on every tree,  
> Mocks married men, for thus sings he:  
> 'Cuckoo!  
> Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,  
> Unpleasing to a married ear.
> 
>  When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,  
> And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,  
> When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,  
> And maidens bleach their summer smocks,  
> The cuckoo then, on every tree,  
> Mocks married men, for thus sings he:  
> 'Cuckoo!  
> Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,  
> Unpleasing to a married ear.
> 
>  Weird, right?
> 
> Finally, I just wanted to note that I am aware I have a semi-abandoned WIP, and I do mean to finish it. The next chapter is more than half written, so please don't give up on me! It still might be awhile, though. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


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